INVESTING SUCCESS FOLLOWS NATURAL LAWS

At five years old I gave my first public speech. It was in a church meeting for primary children and I still remember it.  It began like this, “Everything in the world works by a law; Birds fly by a law; flowers grow by a law and bees make honey by a law…” I went on to teach that if you want to obtain anything in life, you have to obey the law by which that thing is governed. Those who violate law, will not obtain the thing they want, but something else.
 
I had the occasion to share the message of that talk with a young couple this week who sought advice on investing. They had dreams to obtain substantial wealth. The process by which they intended to obtain it involved buying very risky penny stocks in the hopes that one of them would hit the jackpot.
 
I tried to teach them that there are natural laws that govern investing, and to have a likelihood of success, those laws had to be followed. Sure, there are some rare individuals who win the lottery, but gambling should never be considered a legitimate investment plan.
 
I told them to compare good investing with good health. There are laws that govern health and those who desire to be healthy must be willing to abide by those laws. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans continually try to find a shortcut to good health. They want a magic pill, a crash diet, or some amazing machine to melt away the pounds with little effort.
 
When I ride my bike in the morning I pass by a gym and am impressed to see so many cars in the lot at 6 am. I am pretty sure very few of those people are excited to jump out of bed when the alarm goes off, but they want the reward and understand they must follow the law of health to obtain it.
 
Successful investors obtain success by faithfully following the laws of financial health. They know it isn’t always easy and it can take a long time and a lot of patience. I am certain they are often tempted to do other more exciting things with their money. But, like my dedicated friends who are up exercising while much of the world is still asleep, they believe the reward is worth the cost of obeying the laws that produce it.
 
I hope this young couple heeds my advice, though I honestly don’t think they will. Like many, they seem determined to find a shortcut that will bypass the natural laws that govern investing, which course will likely lead them to disappointment. I guess that’s OK too because sometimes it is only in breaking a law that we learn a painful lesson about why we should start keeping it. Everything in the world works by a law, and so does investment success. Try to bypass the law and you do so at your own peril.